Actually, J.K. Rowling herself has confirmed this theory. In an interview given several months ago, she said that Harry wasn't a proper Horcrux. In the book, Dumbledore uses the word "Horcrux" to describe the part of Voldemort's soul that attached itself to Harry, but J.K. Rowling said that she just used the word "Horcrux" out of convenience. In actuality, a fragment of soul accidentally broke off.

I don't remember in which interview J.K. Rowling explained this. Perhaps someone else can remember and provide a link.

i've always believed that what turned out to be right and wrong turned out that way bc JK made them so. that is to say, if harry turned out not to be a horcrux there really is nothing in the books before DH to contradict this. it's not really that your theory has been proven incorrect so much as JK took the story down a different path. She didn't debunk your theory, she just chose a different solution.

this is one of the reasons the books are so much fun. We can argue for ever and ever about how this theory is right and that theory is wrong, but at the end of the day, what we're really talking about aren't really theories. what we're really trying to guess is which direction the story is going to go.

i should add that i too thought for sure that harry wasn't a horcrux. i thought the idea so preposterous that i never paid any attention to it. silly me.

While I agree with Harry not being a horcrux, I have to refute one of your justifications. You stated that Harry couldn't be a horcrux because the unique link between him and Voldy did not exist with any other horcrux. But you are wrong. He did share that unique link with one other of his horcruxes. Nagini. That unique link couldn't exist with the other horcruxes because they were inanimate objects. There was no consciousness to link to.

Indeed, this is entirely a semantic argument that completely skirts the issues that actually were debated at the time. Moreover, the two big "points" backing up the author's thesis are incorrect.

First, there obviously is accidental magic (or, more properly, accidental effects of magic) in Potterverse. The protection induced by cold-blooded self-sacrifice can ONLY happen by accident: one must accept that one is going to die for it to work, so it cannot be done intentionally. The allegiance of wands is incidental: Harry had no intention of conquering Draco's wand, (nor Draco of conquering Dumbledore's) yet both happened. Harry did not intend to induce a Life Debt between Pettigrew and himself, yet he did. Even the "blood bond" connection caused by Voldemort's regeneration with Harry's blood was an accidental side effect. In all cases, they were "collateral damage" from particular situations. All of the ideas about what put a piece of soul into Harry (and, remember, that was the issue, not whether Harry was a prepared Horcrux) involved accidental complex magic, so the idea that accidental magic could not happen was falsified by Dumbledore's statement that Harry had a piece of Voldemort in him: unless one made the special pleading argument that Dumbledore was wrong!

Second, Voldemort obviously had a strong connection to the other animate Horcrux (Nagini). This was Dumbledore's reasoning for suspecting the beast's nature; many people argued that Dumbledore was giving Harry a subtle clue about Harry's own link to Voldemort there. (Had Snape been unable to communicate with Harry, then it would have been down to Harry to figure this out on his own, after all.) The other Horcruxes were inanimate objects: they had no senses through which Voldemort could perceive things. That being said, even he was surprised that he could not "feel" the destruction of his Horcruxes; Dumbledore suspected this because of the maimed state of Voldemort's soul.

Some people were arguing that Harry had Voldemort's soul in him as far back as 2000. Indeed, there was an "either/or" debate prior to Prince over whether Voldemort had deliberately hidden his soul somewhere or whether he had accidentally left it in Harry. Oops: we should not have put an "either" there! That was a case where we were both right, at least to an extent. The word "Horcrux" never was relevant: it became a handy label after Prince. The issue all along was whether Harry had Voldemort's soul (or some piece thereof), not about a particular label for a person carrying around another person's soul (or soul fragment).

I know that this sounds rather harsh, but trying to claim that both sides were "right" when one was entirely incorrect never is a good thing, even when discussing fiction! Rowling left us the clues throughout the series - it should be clear that she intended this from the start - and she created no plot holes with her conclusion (at least on this score!). The "anti-Harrycrux" arguments were all about why Harry "couldn't" have Voldemort's soul (or a piece of it) in him; the counterarguments were that Rowling herself had presented no such reasons, and clearly she had not, as she intended this to be true all along. Regardless of what you would call such a thing as Harry, those who said that he had a piece of Voldemort's soul were correct. Those who argued that Voldemort would not die unless Harry excised that piece of soul, and that Harry ultimately would have to sacrifice himself because of it also were correct. (Fortunately for Harry, point #1 is wrong and this accidentally triggered his salvation!)

(It doubles for The Hobbit, too!)
“If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. Otherwise don't put it there.” - A. P. Chekhov, Gurlyand's Reminiscences, and who knew why the Dog was long before the Shack!

I actually agree with the point that Harry was not a true Horcrux. Even after reading DH and agreeing with how things turned out, I did not entirely agree with the use of the word "Horcrux" to describe Harry's state of being when Voldemort's soul was in him.

My reasons for thinking this is because in HBP, we are told that a Horcrux has to be made, indicating that it is an intentional creation by the wizard. In Harry's case, Voldemort never actually cast the Horcrux-creating spell to turn him into one, but like it says in DH, his maimed soul was so unstable that part of it splintered off and "latched onto" Harry's soul instead. Thus he unintentionally made Harry into a sort of Horcrux (for want of a better word!)

Wimsey has made a good point about some kinds of magic being accidental. However, I think the author of the editorial didn't mean it that way. She most likely meant that specific spells a wizard has in mind (like the one to make a Horcrux) cannot be performed by accident. Magic may be performed by accident/unintentionally (eg. self-sacrifice, wand allegiance, life debts etc.) but they cannot be controlled by the wizard himself. I believe JKR refers to magic such as self-sacrifice, wand allegiances etc as 'deep magic' or 'magic at its deepest level' (I hope I got the phrase right).

As for Voldemort having no connection to the other Horcruxes, my guess is that it was probably because, as others have pointed out, they were inanimate objects and had no consciousness for him to connect to. He obviously had a kind of mind connection with Nagini, as seen in DH when Nagini sent a message to Voldemort from Godric's Hollow.

Another example would be Harry's dream when the snake attacked Mr Weasley (though I am not too sure about this one). If I remember correctly, and do correct me if I am wrong , Dumbledore - or was it Snape or someone else? - explained that Harry saw the scene through the snake's eyes because Voldemort was posessing the snake at that time. Later we find out that the snake is Nagini, and since by then she was already his last Horcrux, he probably had no need to really posess her like he did to Harry in OOTP.

On the whole, I agree with the main premise of this editorial that Harry is not a true Horcrux... There is no doubt that there was a piece of Voldemort's soul in him, but to call him a Horcrux seems incorrect somehow, given the circumstances. Even after all these months, I still don't believe fully believe the statement: "Harry is a Horcrux". However, I understand that we all use the word "Horcrux" to describe his state of being when Voldemort's soul piece was in him because of a lack of a better, more appropriate word. Ah, if only there was one!

My reasons for thinking this is because in HBP, we are told that a Horcrux has to be made, indicating that it is an intentional creation by the wizard.

Strictly speaking, this is not true: in Prince, we are told that a Horcrux could be made: that is, there is at least one way to affix a piece of soul onto an object and then anchor the main soul to Earth. However, we never were told that there was only one way to do this. To conclude that from Slughorn's general explanation is a logical fallacy known as the fallacy of denying the antecedent. That is, for example: Crows are black; the bird is not a crow; therefore the bird is not black. This argument obviously is fallacious: because never have we stated that there are no other black birds. If its a blackbird, then it would be black!

The encasing spell obviously is one way to put a piece of soul in something, just as a crow is one way of a bird being black; however, just because the encasing spell is not cast / the bird is not a crow, it does not follow that there is not a piece of soul in something / a black bird.

Quote:

Originally Posted by nat089

Wimsey has made a good point about some kinds of magic being accidental. However, I think the author of the editorial didn't mean it that way. She most likely meant that specific spells a wizard has in mind (like the one to make a Horcrux) cannot be performed by accident.

The real point was accidental (or incidental) side effects of spells or induced magic. It's sort of like the effects of shrapnel after a bomb: you would not say: "that could not be a piece of metal embedded in you because nobody shot it at you." Instead, we know that an unplanned side effect of a "bang" is shrapnel.

Ultimately, the argument before (and after) Hallows was that, no matter what happened, some magic was accidentally induced: Voldemort did not cast a spell to put a piece of himself (whatever that piece was) into Harry. There were other ideas - for example, one person here suggested that a Protean charm was accidentally cast - but all ideas required accidental magic. Thus, this was evidence against every idea, and therefore evidence against no ideas. Indeed, the biggest spell of all - Lily's Avada Kedavra deflection - was accidental, as wizards do not even know the incantation to that! So, we really knew that the main premise was false for a long time.

Quote:

Originally Posted by nat089

On the whole, I agree with the main premise of this editorial that Harry is not a true Horcrux... There is no doubt that there was a piece of Voldemort's soul in him, but to call him a Horcrux seems incorrect somehow, given the circumstances.

Which makes it a semantic issue! That is adequate for some people, but not for others.

My main point was that "Harrycrux <> Horcrux" skirts the issue: in June of 2007, nobody (that I read) was claiming: "Harry has a piece of Voldemort's soul in him, but he's not a Horcurx." People were saying "Harry has /has not a piece of Voldemort's soul in him." All of the arguments supposedly refuting the "Harrycrux" idea were based on why there could not be a piece of soul in Harry: and unless Rowling created a major plot-hole, those assertions obviously were incorrect.

(It doubles for The Hobbit, too!)
“If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. Otherwise don't put it there.” - A. P. Chekhov, Gurlyand's Reminiscences, and who knew why the Dog was long before the Shack!

I tend to agree with you nat089 and thus in a way with the author. Perhaps we should invent a word to describe Harry having a piece of soul attached to him which isn't a Horcrux. Voldemort communicated with Nagini via parseltongue and I reckon Harry could have too if he'd wanted to (I can't remember if he did or not in the books so perhaps someone could enlighten me?) and since Nagini and Voldemort were like master and pet naturally he had control over her much the same as many people do with their pets etc Therefore I think the closeness he had with Nagini would have occurred whether or not she was a Horcrux.

On the whole I rather liked this editorial and it's reasoning and like you don't think harry was a true Horcrux.

n the whole I rather liked this editorial and it's reasoning and like you don't think harry was a true Horcrux.

But, again, that was NEVER the debate. Side A alleged that Harry had a piece of Voldemort's soul. Side B alleged that Harry did not. Side A was right, Side B was wrong: so, this editorial is nothing more or less than Side B trying to change their argument after the fact.

Here is an apt analogy. There is a sick patient. Doctor Smith diagnoses it as a tapeworm infection because of A, B and C. Doctor Anderson says that it cannot be a tapeworm because of D, E and F. However, it turns out that D, E and F all are either incorrect or irrelevant to the idea that it was a tapeworm. And, shockingly, they pull a 10 foot long tapeworm out of the patient's intestines.

Doctor Anderson then says: "well, I was not really wrong: I said that you did not have a worm, and a tapeworm is not really a worm: it's a different type of animal!"

This is the exact same sort of semantic argument. Here, all of the reasons why Harry could not have a piece of Voldemort's soul turned out to be wrong. All of the evidence supporting the idea that Harry had a piece of Voldemort's soul turned out to be accurate predictors. Clinging to a word makes the anti-Harrycrux diagnosers no less incorrect than our "not a tapeworm" diagnosing Doctor Anderson.

Indeed, this particular article takes Dr. Anderson a step further by maintaining two ideas that the canon flatly contradicts (accidental magic and the lack of connection between Voldemort and an animate Horcrux): that is sort of like Doctor Anderson still saying: "well, the patient did not have a fever" despite the 39˚ thermometer reading! Remember, the strong link between Voldemort and Nagini was used by the pro-Harrycrux crowd as evidence that both animals (the primate and the snake) had a piece of Voldemort's soul in him/her.

What the anti-Harrycrux crowd should simply acknowledge is that all of their arguments against Harrycrux were incorrect:

A piece of Voldemort's soul could co-exist with Lily's charm (which we already knew: Voldemort's main soul was doing that ever since the end of Goblet);

Any and all explanations for the link between Harry and Voldemort involved accidental magic (which we already knew: Dumbledore tells Harry that Voldemort did not mean to leave a piece of himself in Harry in Chamber);

The link between Voldemort and Nagini (almost certainly) was similar to that between Voldemort and Harry (which, again, we already knew from Order);

Magic, memory and other cognitive faculties are properties of a soul in Potterverse (which we already knew since Goblet given that Voldemort retained all of this with just his soul: he did not have to retrieve his magical abilities or memories separately after regaining a body);

Harry having a piece of Voldemort's soul did not necessitate Harry's dying, but "only" Harry's excising the soul fragment (this was more of a "I don't want Harry to die, so I won't believe it!" statement than an argument).

So, think of this as "House" for magical ailments: what you call a person with a piece of someone's soul, that never any more relevant or important than whether a tapeworm is a true worm or some other animal. A tapeworm is a parasitic infection, and if you are a medical doctor rather than a zoologist, then that is your concern, not whether is is a worm: and the same is (or, now, was) true here; Harry had analog of the parasitic "worm" despite the fact that many fans diagnosed him as having something else. I'll omit the stuff that House would have said about the anti-Harrycrux diagnosers: the mods probably would laugh at it on TV, but not here! :cool

(The sole difference is that Horcruxes will never be an issue again, so we do not need to know anything more about them than we do or worry about what to call them; tapeworms are still a problem for both doctors and zoologists! )

(It doubles for The Hobbit, too!)
“If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. Otherwise don't put it there.” - A. P. Chekhov, Gurlyand's Reminiscences, and who knew why the Dog was long before the Shack!

The fact remains that a number of us think that the piece of soul Harry had was not a 'true' horcrux as it wasn't encased as horcruxes are. However I wonder about Nagini - was her bit of Voldemort's soul encased in somethng in her or just encased in her? I can't remember where the bit of Voldemort's soul was in Harry now and am too lazy to go and look it up so can someone remind me and post the answer please.

The fact remains that a number of us think that the piece of soul Harry had was not a 'true' horcrux as it wasn't encased as horcruxes are.

That might be true, but as I keep stressing, it is entirely irrelevant to the Harrycrux argument as it existed prior to Hallows. Thus, it still does not make that anti-Harrycrux people even partially correct: they were not writing "Harry has a piece of Voldemort's soul, but he's not a Horcrux," they were writing "Harry cannot have a piece of Voldemort's soul because of X, Y and Z." However, they were wrong: Harry had a piece of Voldemort's soul in him. The whole issue about what to call Harrycrux is a completely new one that did not exist prior to Hallows.

It is also purely semantic: accidental Horcruxes induced immortality and created tight links between wizard and "familiar" no less than did deliberate Horcruxes. Harry had to have the soul fragment excised for Voldemort to die, and that meant that the only way Harry could survive was to make the Hard-but-Right choice to sacrifice himself for the Greater Good: and that was the story of Deathly Hallows. What to call Harry is totally irrelevant to the story, the plot and the themes: and that is about all there is to Harry Potter (or any work of literature) that matters! So, if Harry has all of the properties of a Horcrux, calling him something different just introduces two words where one is adequate: and the term "accidental Horcrux" (which is what the Harrycrux proponents used) works just fine for distinguishing Harry from the others.

Again, that is my criticism of the whole thesis: the author is suggesting that people were debating about whether Harry was a Horcrux as if we were debating what to call an accidental Horcrux: but the argument was purely about whether or not Harry was an accidental Horcrux. Again, we used the term "accidental Horcrux" in the discussion when the mods allowed it (the topic had to be suspended on multiple occasions), and Dumbledore even used it in the book. So, it is mischaracterizing both arguments: Harrycrux proponents never suggested that Voldemort deliberately made Harry a Horcrux, and they took great pains to emphasize that it had to be an accident. (I remember that prior to Prince, "Harrycrux" proponents thought that it had to be an accident because they were under the impression that Voldemort himself did not know how he became immortal: that was a case of being partially correct!)

So, that leaves me where we began: I still do not see what the anti-Harrycrux proponents got right, and I still do not see what the Harrycrux proponents got wrong. The latter side nailed it, the former side whiffed.

Quote:

Originally Posted by inkling7

However I wonder about Nagini - was her bit of Voldemort's soul encased in somethng in her or just encased in her?

These would be one and the same, wouldn't they? The exact bit of anatomy does not seem to be important! Once Nagini was killed, the soul fragment was released and dissipated.

Or are you asking if it was in some object placed inside of Nagini? No such thing was described: it would have been dreadful writing on Rowling's part to not mention such a thing if it existed, and also dreadful plotting, as that would have made it complete luck that Neville managed to break the object while decapitating the snake. Rowling resorted to a couple of arbitrary cheats (e.g., having Harry and all the others somehow miss Slytherin's mark on the Locket), but she generally is very good at avoiding such things.

Quote:

Originally Posted by inkling7

I can't remember where the bit of Voldemort's soul was in Harry now and am too lazy to go and look it up so can someone remind me and post the answer please.

It was almost certainly in Harry's scar: that was the thing that actually hurt when Voldemort connected with Harry. The scar never hurt again after the soul fragment was removed. So, that is by far the simplest explanation: and Rowling basically uses Occam's Razor as a plotting guide.

(It doubles for The Hobbit, too!)
“If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. Otherwise don't put it there.” - A. P. Chekhov, Gurlyand's Reminiscences, and who knew why the Dog was long before the Shack!

What's this argument pre-DH got to do with it now as I think the author was half right and by pointing it out with her reasons wasn't that the point of the editorial?

This entire thesis is about the pre-DH argument! The author is trying to claim that she (?) and others were "half-right" when they argued (prior to Hallows) that Harry was not a Horcrux. This is a semantic distortion of what actually happened, as the author now is implying that the argument was about whether Harry was a Horcrux encompassed the issue of what we would call an accidental Horcrux. (Prior to DH, we called it either "accidental Horcrux" or "Harrycrux.") However, we never debated this: Harrycrux proponents said that Harry had a piece of Voldemort's soul,Harrycrux opponents said that Harry did not. The latter side saying: "well, we will not call Harry a Horcrux" still leaves them 100% incorrect on the issue that was debated at that time: and thus with no grounds for claiming that they were partially correct.

The author's two main supporting arguments simply trot out two of the arguments that Harrycrux opponents trotted out before, even though both contradict the canon. (We knew that they contradicted the canon in June of 2007, never mind now!) We first learn that magic can be triggered without intentional spells when we learned that Lily's sacrifice accidentally triggered Harry's defense. We learn that Voldemort has a strong link (similar to the one that he has with Harry) with Nagini before we knew that Nagini was a Horcrux.

The anti-Harrycrux glass is neither half-full nor half-empty: it's shattered! So, again: specifically, what is correct here? The canon "facts" supposedly supporting the argument are incorrect and the portrayal of the original argument is incorrect. There is not much left after that!

(It doubles for The Hobbit, too!)
“If in the first act you have hung a pistol on the wall, then in the following one it should be fired. Otherwise don't put it there.” - A. P. Chekhov, Gurlyand's Reminiscences, and who knew why the Dog was long before the Shack!

Wimsey, don't crush our already crushed egos! We were half-right, he wasn't a proper Horcrux! Let us have our semantic, everyone'll be the happier for it.

To the author: I swear you must have read my mind when you were writing this! And it was posted on my birthday too - spooky stuff. I was also firmly in the anti-Harrycrux camp, with your first point being my main reason (and I also disagreed with Mugglenet's book). So when I read DH, I was at least happy that Jo didn't falsify my points even if the overall theory was incorrect. I was already humiliated from Snape's loyalties! I had been saying since HBP that he was evil, for most of the book that was just beign confirmed, and at the end we get a 180! Oh, the humiliation, in front of Leaky Loungers, other online fans, and Walmart employees! Anyway, awesome editorial, our side needs someone to defend us!

__________________~hpboy13: the ultimate Luna lover!

Three-time author of an editorial on Mugglenet!
Semi-finalist of Mugglenet's 2008 Costume Contest!